yer too right about the PR.. Engineers are good at Engineering but rubbish at PR.
Remember for most US bods they only see brits as bad guys in Hollywood films....brits are always the bad guys and even they use a US actor they always on a brit accent...
brit = bad guy - heeyar shoot the bad guy down
Oh really? I never knew that...
Do you have gas in you home, because guess what?
Surf - Mat.
You think the shareholders are not very important.
You, me and every one of us will do a lot better by BP maintaining their dividend payments. Do you have a pension? How about home insurance or car insurance, maybe you have travel insurance. You may support charities…. where do you think these intuitions invest their monies?
He’s a little bit of info for you…. £1 of every £7 paid by UK companies in dividends is paid by...... BP.
To be fair to Mat, whilst a company the size of BP remaining on the right track is good for all our personal circumstances; our personal circumstances should (and should be seen to) come 2nd to clearing up a mess like this. Making the vast amounts of profit a company like BP makes in the good years (i.e. non disaster years) only really seems justified if it means they are in position to have the cash to sort out these problems when they happen in the bad. It stands to reason that we are all oil consumers and the consequence of the oil industry are accidents like this (or tankers sinking etc) from time to time; so if we all have to take a financial hit for the year (i.e. no dividend this year for our pensions etc) in order for the company to have enough cash to do the job properly, well then so be it.
Nope.Do you have gas in you home, because guess what?
Okay let's try an analogy shall we?
A guy hits a family pet dog in his Porsche and it's his fault. There are many witnesses. Instead of worrying about the badly injured dog, he rants about how much his car will cost to fix. It doesn't matter how much he actually worries about the dog - onlookers think he's a selfish pr1ck and hate him.
This IMO is the stance BP has taken.
In a parallel universe, the same guy hits the same dog, rushes out to see if it's okay, calls a vet then deals with the car damage later on.
This is the stance BP SHOULD have taken.
You can all quote "facts" and patronise me until the cows come home but the fact is, this is a disaster, it's destroyed a lot of the environment and the company seen as (even if they aren't) responsible are worrying about shareholders more than the disaster.
It's a bit like bankers taken big bonuses after being bailed out - whether it's right or wrong, it's pi55es everyone right off.
The whole PR thing is bollocks anyway.
The US have been on BP's case for a few years now. I can't remeber the exact stats but something like 95% of OSHAs NCRs in the past 3 years have been on 2 BP sites. Really? I wonder how many other refineries in the US have come under the same scrutiny in the same period?
Lets be clear about what safety violations actually are. It can be as serious as a non functioning safety device or as minor as a signature in the wrong box. OSHA have been crawling all over BP hunting for problems. Had they applied the same levels of manpower and scrutiny to other sites they would have uncovered many of the smae issues.
some context, Note that BP are making the headline but look at the industry performance as whole in Washington state!
There is a major problem with the US administration's attitude to BP and OSHA have been politicised to help drive BP out of the US market.
Seriously though - do Shell or any other company do things systematically better?
In my experience, no they don't.
from NASDAQ:
NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- BP PLC (BP) agreed to pay a $69,200 fine for safety violations found at its Cherry Point refinery in Washington, the state's labor department said Friday.The 225,000-barrel-a-day plant located near Blaine, Wash., received citations on May 5 for 13 serious safety violations for insufficient process-safety management issues following state inspections. BP also had the option to appeal the citations or request a meeting to discuss them.
Such safety violations are commonly found across the U.S. refining industry, which is the most frequent source of accidents or explosions related to chemical hazards.
"While it is good that BP has decided to correct the hazards without an appeal, we are disturbed that more than 10 years after the explosion that killed six workers at the Equilon refinery, our inspectors are still finding significant safety violations every time we inspect one of the refineries in the state of Washington," said Michael Silverstein, assistant director for the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries' Division of Occupational Safety and Health.
The 1998 Equilon explosion state's deadliest industrial accident until the blast at Tesoro Corp.'s (TSO) refinery nearby in Anacortes that claimed seven lives this past April. Meanwhile, the explosion at BP's Texas City refinery in 2005 was the industry's most destructive accident, killing 15 and injuring 170 people.
Mandatory inspections of Washington State's five oil refineries identified dangerous safety violation across the board.
The inspections at BP's Cherry Point refinery focused on a large hydrocracker processing unit used to process heavy oil into lighter products. Twelve of the violations involved regulations for managing highly hazardous chemicals. The final violation was related to improper machine guarding, but those problems were corrected before the citation has been issued, the labor department's press release said.
That's not a very good analogy though is it. A better one would be a guy hires a porsche with badly maintained brakes and first time out they fail and he hits a family dog and he agrees to pay whatever it takes to make the dog better, even though there is a legal maximum above which he is no liable.
This is what has actually happened.
Yoss - interesting reading - thanks.
BP have enough money for both the clean up and the divi. But not enough for an American lying PR company (it would seem)to make it all sound and look better than it really is, would that really help the situation? While everyone is having a pop/ranting at Tony Hayward for his comments and BP for their possible overall responsibility, there are loads of people working their bollocks off trying to solve the problem. There are companies being asked to supply kit that would normally take over 12 weeks to manufacture in 2 weeks, money no object.
+1
Tony Hayward put his foot in his mouth several times. Hardly a way to judge an entire company's handling of a crisis, is is?
poor bp victimised by the us H&S monkeys
so it has nothing to do with the oil leaks in alaska
the refinery explosion
25 deaths at bp sites in five years etc etc
the rig may have been owned by transocean and work contracted to haliburton
but they are responsible as they take the lions share of the profits, ultimately the buck stops with them
well them and the oil hungry government
if you dont have the technology to efficiently drill a well and be able to fix things when they go wrong then you really shouldnt be drilling there
its not just bps fault, it the us governments too, but it seems that the oil companies and the regulators had too cozy a relationship
just like with the banks!
governments, and electorates are happy to ignore the dangers while times are good
Is that 25 in the US or globally? Where they BP workers or part of a sub contract chain?
frankly Kimbers, 25 deaths at BP sites in five years ain't much when in context...
some figures for the US ONLY: [url]
CDC.GOV scroll down to the 2 tables at the bottom
thats just the 11 deaths on the deepwater horizon and 14 at the texas oil refinery
dunno how many others may have died
but certainly in the texas refinery bps H&S was at fault
but certainly in the texas refinery bps H&S was at fault
i think we're going round in circles now
Kimbers - how many people died at other companies' facilities?
i have no idea but when they die in a large fireball the H&S people tend to take notice
and the 15 who died at texas another 170 were injured
going back to the analogy above BPs fault is that they obviously never checked to see if the brakes were working after they bought a high performance car with 100,000+ miles on the clock.
Surf Mat - very naiive about the fuel distribution and retail business. Have a look around your local geographical region....
... do BP, Shell, Total, Texaco, Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda etc all have a local refinery, distribution hub and road distribution network to support their retail outlets in your region??
No, of course they don't - actually, I'm not sure where the nearest Asda refinery is.
Reallity is, a large proportion of the, say petroleum, leaving a refinery is at a stock grade and shipped to local distribution depots. If Chevron (Texaco) own the nearest / only distribution depot in an area they will supply their own retail sites, plus all the other majors who might not have a local distribution site. Each company then add their own closely guarded blend (comercial secrecy) of additives to create their own fuel brands from the base stock grade petroleum.
Buncefield / Total were mentioned above in respect of H&S prosecutions. That site has had major repercussions in terms of H&S and environmental regulation of fuel storage sites in the UK - but what is not so widely known is that the Buncefield distribution depot was a joint venture of four oil major partners...(Total, Chevron, BP and Shell + the British Pipeline Agency)
Surf mat remember if you come north of Manchester in your car you will need to fill up an extra large fuel tank or tow your own fuel bowser. because everything there will have been down BP's forties pipeline (in fact probably all the fuel in the UK will have been down it with the exception of a few cheap independants)
falkirk-mark... not really. UK refineries are located at major ports so import of crude and export of product is largely market driven.
See below
[url=
GREENERGY.COM petroleum supply chain[/url]
Look I will try and avoid using it - I realise that's nearly impossible but I will try. Very few BP stations down here anyway but yes, others use their fuel.
Look I will try and avoid using it - I realise that's nearly impossible but I will try. Very few BP stations down here anyway but yes, others use their fuel.
To add to your difficulties, the oil majors have been getting out of retail for years. Most of the forecourts are now franchises that have a particular brand "badge" and are tied in to fuel supply contracts - for fuel that may or may not have come from a BP refinery...
... infact, if you look at the previous link that I posted you will see that BP have / will soon have no UK refining capacity at all.
already the case in the UK
NEWS.BBC.CO.UK bankrupcy by the end of the year?
It must be true if the bookies are predicting it.
Have a look at this then look at the two above, would you believe it they used the law to protect the owners of the Titanic.
UK refineries are located at major ports so import of crude and export of product is largely market driven.
Nah, Stanlow certainly isn't on a major port and is the second biggest refinery.
Stanlow, how does it get it's oil if not near a major port?
Dunno, pipe? I do know that oil tankers do not come any where near Stanlow (and I live about 10 miles away). I do have an oil pipe going through my land but it's a feed going south not to Stanlow.
Edit: just checked and it's piped in from Tranmere.
its not just the bookies
the fact is clean up from an oil spill as big as this is virtually impossible, oil is still present in the sands around the exxon valdeez crash and the wetlands in the gulf are considered a more valuable and delicate environment
bp having publicly signed up to foot the bill could end up paying to complete a never ending task
